I touch fire I stare at the Sun
by Iorek Byrnison
Summary: "I need you." I don't know who says it first. I'll never know, but I do. I do. I do. I need you Ichigo Kurosaki. SLASH Byakuya/Ichigo.


**I touch fire. I stare at the sun: **

**Byakuya/Ichigo**

_Iorekbynison_

I want you. I want you so much it hurts me, surprises me because I have not wanted something so badly in decades. You do little but distract me from my duties as a captain of the Gotei 13, from my sister, from my position as head of the Kuchiki family. It makes me angry sometimes, that I can't look away from you, that I can't turn a blind eye to a man who is still a boy in everything but numbers. I have no control over this situation. I look forward to distractions.

You hair is one. Everyone notices it. How could they not? Everyone comments on it. It's such an absurd shade of orange that at first I thought it couldn't be natural, but I've known you too long, far too long, and I know you don't buy into cosmetic appearances. What shinigami needs use of hair dye anyway?

Those orange locks; are they spiky or are they soft? I yearn to run my fingers through that mane like my lieutenant does after a friendly sparring match. He rubs roughly against your scalp with a ridiculous smile on his tattooed face. That damn Abarai. Is it strange that I feel the need to beat him down, to bury him so far beneath Sōkyoku Hill that he'll never be heard from again? I feel often that such a fate should befall the ones who touch something I consider mine. Abarai doesn't even have intentions towards you. He's too busy slobbering over my sister to care for much more than sparing time with an orange haired shinigami. I know those things yet still my noble blood boils over when you look at him with expressions you will never show me.

Your eyes are nothing special on their own. They are angled, traditional, and deep brown. Rukia says they are your mother's eyes; that she's seen the resemblance between yourself and the beautiful woman who birthed and died for you. It is your expressions that captivate me. It is the way you show a whole gamut of emotions in the thinness of your lips or the pull of your skin upon high cheek bones. I want to kiss the tension from between your frowning eyebrows. It is a foolish, pleasant thought. I wonder how you taste.

Your body, well, that is certainly art to behold. The Woman's society of the Seretei has begun to devote entire issues to your looks. Did you know I take a very specific route every afternoon from the Kuchiki compound to my office in the Gotei 13 headquarters just because it passes by the captain's training facilities? You have such a damnable habit as sparring in the hot midday sun with your shirt off.

How many times have I mapped the paths of the slow fat drops of sweat as they slide down from a smooth neck to a dusty nipple and finally to settle into the waistband fabric of your low slung Shinigami pants? I am ashamed of my brazenness, of my lack of control. I wonder what you would do if I let my fingertips retrace that path all the way down to your pleasure.

I must sound insane, like a stalker or that human girl who followed you around while you still lived in a breathing body. Hopefully I'm not as utterly, shamefully vapid as she. Hopefully you would think I have much more to offer than a teenage girl who could not get her courage up to confess to you while you were alive. I'm a hypocrite now I know. My feelings, sometimes I hate them. Sometimes I hate you, but then you do something so utterly sill and ridiculous like paint my office bright purple or challenge Rukia to drunken Chappy drawing contests that I can't help find you all the more endearing. You catch my attention once more. I can't look away. It's like looking at the sun, so bright and awe inspiring, but so dangerous because I'm going blind to the other things around me.

Do you know of these feelings? Surely you do. They roar from my chest with the ferocity of a lion. I think you know. I think you know when I see you smirk at me in the halls or when I hear the deepness of your voice during our rare face to face meetings. Rukia, though, says you've always been blissfully ignorant to the affections of others. With an amused voice she once mentioned you led tons of hapless girls on a merry chase before you became a full time shinigami.

Maybe you are leading me on the same chase? Are you? I will not run. I will not run for your feelings even though the desire to eats at my soul. It eats me away until inside I am nothing, but a husk waiting and waiting for your touch to fill me back up.

I am a Kuchiki. We do not ask for what we want. We take what we want and though I want you my pride is the cost of that transaction and Kuchiki's are nothing without their pride. It's an evitable truth with two such as us, too stubborn to move towards anyone, but too hooked, hypnotized, to give up the quest.

Last week you brushed your hand against mine in the Captain's meeting. It was a school boy move. Your eyes shifted to the side and then you engaged Renji in conversation, but the blush on your cheeks was still noticeable. Does my body have the same effect on you as your body has on mine? Do you burn at the thought of a touch? That would be ideal. It would mean my feelings are not futile, that I have more of a chance than most.

I want you I've said. I continue to say it in my head every day, but never will the words fall from my lips until they first fall from yours. It would be improper for a noble of my status to confess like a simpering fool to one whose reputation is known best as the former Ryoka who broke at least a dozen timeless rules of the Seretei.

Still I fall. You are like a magnet drawing those around you in, drowning them in your essence, your tempest-like reiatsu. Is it strange that I think the suffocation is the best kind of pain? Is it strange that even though my lungs burn with the words I wish to say to you, I can never allow them freedom? Is it strange that no matter how many times I feel my thoughts are hopeless I never give up on the small chance that someday, maybe, you might look my way and give me a smile like you do with the rest of my comrades?

Now I sound like the school boy don't I? This is what has become of the great Byakuya Kuchiki? I'm bewitched by a simple, gruff boy who seems to have the whole of Seretei wrapped around his slim finger.

I've graduated to need. I need you. I need you so much that I've never felt such a low throbbing pain in my heart. I yearn to touch your skin, to run my fingers through your spikey hair, to attempt a smile like I did when Hisana was still alive. You bring me such delicious pain without even knowing it. Pain connects the synapses in my body and makes me feel more alive than I have in centuries.

You come into my office today. Your feet shift for a moment at the door before your spine straightens, lips thin, and a spark lights your brown eyes. I've seen this expression many times, but never towards myself. You are beautiful, I must admit, with your orange hair backlit by the sun pouring through the doorway behind you. You walk until you pass my desk and then rest so close to me I can feel the warmth of your body. We stare at each other for a moment into each other's eyes. I stand, still taller than you. The moment seems to last forever, suspended in time, an eternity.

"I need you."

I don't know who says it first. I'll never know, but I do. I do. I do.

I need you Ichigo Kurosaki.

-AN: Another BLEACH fic to you guys. I have a feeling that this is slightly out of character. I don't feel that Byakuya is uptight enough, but I always picture him as the type to obsess over his partner. If you really want to squint you can put this in the same realm as "The Door in the Air", but I prefer a happier ending like this one and there are a few technical problems with the conversion. Anyway, I hope you like it!

Until next time.


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